Malinowski Slams Congressional Republicans over Helsinki

Yesterday in Helsinki, President Trump once again showed that he prefers dictatorships to democracies, and that he trusts America’s enemies more than the patriots of our intelligence and law enforcement communities. His disgraceful conduct puts a capstone on a year and a half long saga that began with his plan to lift sanctions against Russia during the 2016 transition. Former Assistant Secretary of State Tom Malinowski helped to implement those sanctions while in office, and tipped off Congress to Trump’s intentions in his administration’s opening days.

For more than 18 months Republican leaders in the House have enabled the president to chip away at the public’s trust in our law enforcement and have done nothing to stop him,” said Tom Malinowski. “They have put party over country and are 100% complicit in his attacks on the people, principles and institutions that keep our country safe and our democracy strong.”

Malinowski’s opponent, Rep. Leonard Lance, was an early adopter of candidate Trump and continued to support him even after he called NATO obsolete and encouraged Russia to hack the emails of his political opponents. In a tweet yesterday, Lance praised the House Intelligence Committee, whose chairman, Devin Nunes, has led House GOP efforts to smear the FBI and the intelligence community.

“Republicans in Congress would sacrifice decades of work in defense of America’s security, prosperity and leadership in the world, all for the sake of tax cuts for corporations and packing the judiciary with regressive justices,” Malinowski said. “If they were serious about putting country over party, they would start by cleaning their own house: demanding that Speaker Ryan remove Devin Nunes from the chairmanship of the Intelligence Committee, and that he bring bills to the floor to protect the Mueller investigation, require disclosure of the president’s tax returns, and shed light on foreign cash in our politics.”

As a human rights activist, Malinowski was instrumental in the passage of the Magnitsky Act, which sanctioned Russia for acts of gross corruption and human rights violations. He implemented the Magnitsky sanctions as Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.